The Santas Who Stole Me (Stolen #1)

Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

ZEKE

We all slept in Keeper’s bed with Georgia last night. She woke up in the middle of it with a nightmare, which she has had almost nightly since she arrived. After that Calum fucked the fear out of her. Keeper made tea, did some work, and I watched. Before Georgia I have never cared to watch someone come, but I have to say watching her shatter is beautiful. She wasn’t able to fall back asleep, so I put her in the bath, and Keeper returned to hold her through the night. She tossed and turned but finally hit REM sleep early this morning.

I sit here in the armchair in the corner watching her breaths rise and fall. The guys left earlier to start breakfast and get to work. With two weeks left until Christmas, we need to get some tasks completed. She’s all wrapped up in that sheet looking so pretty with her hair a mess and her lips in a pout.

I’ve always liked watching women sleep. There’s something about the peacefulness they have when they are unknowingly being watched. I want to watch her for entirely different reasons. One to make sure she’s sleeping without nightmares. The rest of them have to do with all the ways I want to fuck her. I haven’t yet. It’s too soon.

She starts to stir, and I stay seated. Silently waiting for her to wake up completely. She frowns at the empty pillow beside her, then she sits up and sees me splayed out in the chair. My legs are spread wide in nothing but Keeper’s gray joggers. Yawning and stretching with a small smile she walks across the room and heads to the bathroom. After a few minutes she comes out and sits right in my lap. My arm wraps around her to hold her in place, and she puts her head on my shoulder.

“Good morning.”

“Morning,” she whispers back with a wiggle against my leg.

“How are you feeling? Sore?”

“A little, but not too much. I think the bath last night helped, thank you. I’ve never done that before. Was that the first time…” her words trail off, and I can’t see her face buried in my chest.

“It was the first time for all of us to sleep with the same woman. You are the first woman we all have shown an interest in. The first one in this house. The first one in our bed.” The only one to leave an imprint in my chest like this.

“Oh.” She kisses me and moves so that she’s straddling me on the chair with her knees bent on either side.

I’m immediately hard, and my body automatically grinds into her. She doesn’t have anything under this T-shirt. Fuck I want her, but I can’t. I pull back and she frowns.

“Sorry Zeke, I thought … Never mind.” Her eyes cast down, and she sticks out her lip slightly.

Dammit, that’s a sign she was feeling rejection or maybe sadness.

She pushes out of my arms, but then looks at my erection. “I’m confused,” she mumbles.

I move her back to my lap and cradle her head against me again. I should let her go, make her think I’m not interested, so she doesn’t get fucked over by me, but I hate the uncertainty she showed just now. This will be easier if I don’t have to read her face for how she feels, so I rest my chin on her head. Her tiny frame fits into me so well.

“I don’t have emotions and feelings like others. I’ve been diagnosed with words like functional sociopath, spectrum, unipolar. My parents paid a lot for those labels. The truth is none of them fit.” I don’t say anything else, and there are several moments of silence before she speaks.

“Oh Zeke, is that why you’re holding back from me?” Her fingers draw soothing circles on my chest as she exhales.

“I don’t want to assume you want something that you don’t. I can’t read the signs of what you’re feeling or wanting. I would never push you or take advantage.”

“There is no part of you that would do that to me. I don’t think you would hurt me.”

She doesn’t understand. This is what I love about her. She sees the good in everyone, even someone as fucked up as me. I said love. It was only to myself luckily. An expression, I’m sure. I can’t give her the false hope of thinking I’m capable of that. But looking down at her heart-shaped face and those blue eyes. Fuck if I don’t want to feel love for her. “I take everything I want with a smirk on my face. It’s why I picked this profession. It’s easy and I feel no remorse about it. Ever.” I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. My parents knew something was wrong with me. They had me constantly evaluated, and I’ve attempted all kinds of treatments. My problems never checked off all the boxes, so the labels never fit. After all, there isn’t one that says ‘fucked up soul’. I know what I am.

“I don’t feel guilty about murder, which makes it as easy for me as work is for the guy who stocks the grocery shelf. A simple career and job that needs to be done. I do it because I fucking can. That was the reason I started killing for money at first, but then my motives changed.

“When you take someone’s life there is this moment right before it happens. The moment they recognize the end with no way out, emotion flashes, and I can almost feel it. It’s different for everyone dependent on how they view death or if they know they deserve it. That emotion is so strong I can almost touch it, like it’s mine.” Or at least it’s the closest I’ve ever been to feeling it or anything. I’ve never admitted that to anyone. I blow out a breath and brace myself for Georgia to remind me I’m crazy or look disgusted, but she doesn’t.

“Is that why Calum told you lust when we first met. You weren’t sure of how I felt?”

“I study people and take advantage of situations when I can.”

“Study people?”

“Yes. I don’t recognize my own emotions, but I look for them in other people. I typically use it to coerce them for jobs. For some reason I don’t want to do that with you.”

“Zeke.”

My stare stays trained on the top of her head, not wanting to see a wrinkled nose or other signs of rejection. She doesn’t allow it, instead placing her small hands on either side of my cheeks and meeting me eye to eye. “I know you won’t do that with me. I’m not worried about the labels anyone else put on you because none of those fit how you are with me. You bake with me, feed me, put me in a bath. Even now you are protecting me from the threat you think you are because you care about me.”

I start to protest, and she pops a brow at me, causing me to stay silent.

“It’s not just me. The guys too. You obviously care about them. You cook for them, somehow you take care of their finances. You love them, they are your family. You are a killer, but I know you have a heart under there, even if it’s a little icy.”

I curl a finger around a loose strand of her hair. The guys have said similar things over the years, but I never considered them true. Georgia seems adamant about it.

“I’m still a psychopath, even if I like making cookies with you.”

“Of course you are.” She giggles. “But I want you to be my cookie-baking psychopath. That’s how I feel. Kiss me.”

And I do.